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dailypuzzle

Ginger GM

Chess.com

June 11, 2014 3:01

Norway Chess R7: Giri Blunders, Loses to Karjakin

The seventh round of the Norway Chess tournament saw just one decisive game: Anish Giri was an Exchange up for a long time against Sergey Karjakin but blundered terribly on move 131 (!) and had to resign immediately. Karjakin has joined Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana and Vladimir Kramnik in first place, with two rounds to go which will be played on Thursday and Friday.

Nigel Short playing the guitar before starting his commentary

It's arguably the worst way of losing: trying hard for hours and hours to win a better, possibly winning position but then blundering the game away. This is what happened to Anish Giri on Tuesday in Norway; if anyone would never lose this game it was the Dutchman, but it happened anyway, after many hours of play, and after the official commentary had already finished.

In a Symmetrical English not much was going on for a long time, but Giri was better and eventually won an Exchange on move 75. Lots of shuffling followed, but he did make progress and finally he reached a winning position. Update: as Henk Jonker emailed us, it's not so clear actually. See the game annotations. But then he didn't see the right queen maneuver that would have allowed him to activate his rook, and it must have been tiredness what happened at the end. Such a shame!

This was in fact one of four games that took longer than five and a half hours!

Carlsen gave Grischuk an unpleasant afternoon in a Grünfeld, where the ending is supposed to be theoretically OK for Black, but not in this game. After 26 moves Grischuk had all his pieces on the first rank and a bad pawn structure. He said: “If I had Instagram I would put this position from Black's point of view and hashtag #excitingchess.”

Even when he gets quite far in a quiet ending like that, Carlsen can be critical of himself: “I'm not sure there was a win but I could have done better.” About the tournament situation he said: “Everything has been going the right way for me the last couple of rounds, not necessarily in terms of my play but in terms of other results so. Normally with plus one it would have been, now it was not. Certainly I hoped to win because I had a very pleasant position.”

Kramnik came close to a win, but Aronian found a miraculous escape: just when the Russian felt he was going to score a full point, his opponent played a combination that led to perpetual check, and it was correct in every line. Splended defense!

Caruana got into trouble against Topalov in a very theoretical line of the Sicilian, English Attack. Caruana: “I was probably completely lost. I couldn't remember anything.” Topalov: “Actually I'm not sure it's possible to remember.”

Amazingly, Agdestein keeps on drawing his games after getting excellent positions. Svidler had looked at his French Defense the night before, starting at 11pm and thinking, at 3 am, “I really should get some sleep!” By then, and also the next morning, the Russian grandmaster hadn't succeeded in finding anything against it. “It started as fun but it was an incredibly depressing experience.” Agdestein: “It's a bit like the Berlin Defense.”

And so Svidler went for a Réti, but that didn't go according to plan either. Agdestein was simply better after the opening, but was happy to repeat moves when Svidler did so. “An easy day at the office,” the Norwegian said.

Comments

Oh! you look very high at yourself! Where are you at chess now? You seems like you are better than everyone else and have better understanding in chess. Really? You knows? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to chess. There is only good or bad move in chess. Style of play is unique in every GM's. There's no boring or dull chess. Chess is a move it's either good or bad. You if love chess every game is a unique understanding. of a player. If you talk about MC his medals, crowns, titles, money he makes in chess speaks fr himself. unlike everybody else trying to win. But they are always losing tourneys. MCs games are the best from youngster up to now. And his continue to dominate chess. unlike others. Who have only big mouth Just like you.

Carlsen is like a Magic 8-ball of chess moves. He doesn't know where the answers come from , they just do. Not my kind of player. Kramnik and Svidler actually explain their thought process and are relate-able. Carlsen talks about how he feels about a position but the best minds talk about the truth of the position and break it down so we can understand. When his magic 8-ball stops providing good answers we get 9 game draw festivals from our world champ and a lucky win when one of his clients chokes under pressure on the verge of beating him Half of Carlsen's points come from Nakamura. Pathetic he relies on one or two players to keep his inflated rating. His press conferences are like a funeral service.

Oh! you look very high at yourself! Where are you at chess now? You seems like you are better than everyone else and have better understanding in chess. Really? You knows? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to chess. There is only good or bad move in chess. Style of play is unique in every GM's. There's no boring or dull chess. Chess is a move it's either good or bad. You if love chess every game is a unique understanding. of a player. If you talk about MC his medals, crowns, titles, money he makes in chess speaks fr himself. unlike everybody else trying to win. But they are always losing tourneys. MCs games are the best from youngster up to now. And his continue to dominate chess. unlike others. Who have only big mouth Just like you.

i think Magnus played ok, every top grandmaster will go for that ending , it was a very nice preparation for Magnus . Few people mention that Grischuk defended very well, whit out preparation , black loses that endgame at least 50% of the time, he really found some nice ideas .

+1, Besides Simen and Topalov (both of which in fact made their white opponents think of defending rather early), Lev, Karjakin and especially Grischuk defended heroically. The round was a triumph of stubborn defense.

Don't forget the russian connection basically has a freeroll now. My guess is that, to make it less obvious and preserve both players' winning chances, Karj-Kram will share the point. Svidler's has to try and slow down Carlsen. And poor Grischuk will, perhaps reluctantly, blunder again big time in the last round.

And not a word about the long and only decisive game in round 7, Giri-Karjakin which "should have been" a draw. Everyone thought it would be a draw in the end, after Anish Giri had had an advantage earlier, and it WAS a draw.

As Peter Doggers correctly has pointed out: the official commentary had already finished when Giri made his horrible blunder.

What a pity for him! And Karjakin got a big gift.

But Giri is young and a huge talent. He will soon forget about the blunder, go on and play even better chess. I expect a lot from this 19 years young Dutchman.
IMO the game Giri -Karjakin should have been the most interesting subject in this very thread, it deserve to have the main focus here, but that was not to be.

The reason?
It's obvious.

Trolls (probably s3 with different nicknames) have destroyed every chance of a reasonable chess discussion, so there we are, - due to the holy freedom of speech in every situation without any limits, on every blog and for all trolls and spammers..

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